Welcome to the Time Capsule — a weekly newsletter that serves as both my public journal and personal scrapbook. I write about the things on my mind and close to my heart in hopes that those who read it find value and enjoyment in it, and perhaps some solace too.
💭 Quote(s) of the Week
Many people are not ready for their lucky break when it comes to them.
Develop your skills. Study your craft. Save some money. Build a network before you need it. Lay the groundwork.
The prepared person is positioned to benefit from unexpected opportunities.
James Clear
&
Adopt the pace of nature, her secret is patience.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
✏️ Summer in Hamilton
The summer breeze caresses the limbs of the trees, reminding me of a time when I was more easily swayed myself. I am still young, strong and lean by any man’s standards, but the hardships of existence can be felt under the skin. I’ve worked hard to stay open to the world, to bare my naïveté with pride and enthusiasm. I hope I will forever be able to cherish the evening glow, the vast eternity of the beyond, the hopefulness of tomorrow. I reckon these fade with time, as one accumulates the bumps and bruises that define him.
The birds speak in tongues to me, but I understand them: “worry not about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” I hear them, and my heart begs me to accept the blessing, but my mind won’t allow it. I must be ahead of the pack: the master of my own destiny. How arrogant. And sad, for a mere mortal to refuse such grace.
I no longer find relief in drugs and cheap dopamine. I would rather numb my pain with greed, and envy, and pride. I am in limbo, waiting for my guide to meet me. Perhaps it’s not too late to turn back. To rediscover the straight and narrow path. I look around, and see everything available to me if I am only willing to kneel before it. The devil knows exactly how to tempt me.
I think I will turn back.
📸 Photo(s) of the Week
War is the continuation of politics by other means (von Clausewitz).
📖 Book of the Week — The Great Depression: A Diary: A Diary by Benjamin Roth
When the stock market crashed in 1929, Benjamin Roth was a young lawyer in Youngstown, Ohio. After he began to grasp the magnitude of what had happened to American economic life, he decided to set down his impressions in his diary.
This collection of those entries reveals another side of the Great Depression—one lived through by ordinary, middle-class Americans, who on a daily basis grappled with a swiftly changing economy coupled with anxiety about the unknown future. Roth's depiction of life in a time of widespread foreclosures, a schizophrenic stock market, political unrest and mass unemployment seem to speak directly to readers today.
💡 Food for Thought
Better to try and fail than to fail without trying.
//
The only thing worse than no data is bad/inaccurate data.
🔭 Sunday Best
The virtue of focusing on yourself — by Sam Sager
To face our challenges, we need to be a collection of people capable of this combination of gritty confidence and resilience. We need to each evaluate, understand, and communicate our own “values, purposes, and beliefs” so that we contribute to a shared vision worth striving for.
I’m not suggesting that we all should retreat from the world to focus on ourselves. Or, that it’s prudent to wait until you’ve achieved some arbitrary level of self-mastery to begin tackling important work. But I am saying that these collective efforts will have a far better chance of succeeding if enough of us cultivate self-renewal in ourselves.
The Abolition of Man — reflections on education with special reference to the teaching of English in the upper forms of schools, by CS Lewis. A defence of natural law morality.
Lewis believed that the pursuit of the good and dislike of the bad — in other words, the natural values — must be promoted through the education system.
Martin, Danielle, et al. "Canada's universal health-care system: achieving its potential." The Lancet 391.10131 (2018): 1718-1735. — the first of two papers on Canada’s healthcare system: an overview of the history and successes of the system, the challenges we are facing (wait times; inequitable access to services outside the public basket; poor outcomes in Indigenous populations), and possible solutions to prevent it from becoming outdated.
See you next week!
AT